


So It Goes

by innogueira



Series: Wherever I go, I’m coming back [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Make-It-Worse, Angst, Ashes Scene in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bearded Steve Rogers, Gen, I'm not alright, Infinity War, M/M, Neither is Steve, Not A Fix-It, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers, Steve Rogers would do anything for Bucky, What's new with me?, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innogueira/pseuds/innogueira
Summary: "It was a strange feeling. No matter how hard it was, how impossible winning felt, losing always felt like an abstract thought for Steve."There's nothing that can stop Thanos, not even Steve Rogers' sheer will power and pure strength.





	So It Goes

It’s… been a while since Steve got knocked out.

It used to happen a lot when he was much younger, much smaller, when the biggest fight he faced was trying to stop some guy from groping a dame. More often than not, it ended with his ass being handed to him, but Steve liked to think he pulled enough of a fight for it to mean something, that maybe he was able to stop another creep. Bucky used to be there, though, catching him before he got hit with he final blow that would knock the lights out of his tiny frame. Bucky always managed to find him, like he got some sixth sense that warned him when Steve was getting into trouble, and he was always there. He either kicked the guy away with a “What, can’t fight someone your own size?” before helping Steve up, or he’d be carrying his unconscious punk ass home, Steve coming awake with an arm around his waist and a hand holding his over Bucky’s shoulders.

The last time he got knocked out, was in a helicarrier over the Potomac. Bucky beat his face to a pulp, and would beat his enhanced body to unconsciousness, or death, if Steve hadn’t brought him out of whatever Hydra did to his head. He gave out when his back hit the water. Buck hadn’t been there when he woke up, still confused and disoriented on wet dirt, but Steve knew he had been there. Who else saved him from sinking?

This time though, Steve woke up with a groan, alone, but not really. 

Steve could hear Bucky in the back of his head calling him an idiot as he ran up to Thanos. It was a stupid idea, Steve knew, but he couldn’t get him to the last stone. If it killed him, well, Steve had made peace with the fact this might be his last war. If it meant saving the world, saving the universe, saving his friends, saving Bucky… Steve would give his life a thousand times over. 

That’s why he ran up to Thanos, the last defense before he reached Wanda, who was trying so hard, who was killing the one she loved for the sake of the universe. Steve was going to buy her time, even if it killed him. He was sure Bucky would understand. He never liked bullies, but this man wasn’t a bully, this was someone, something, that was about to kill half of the universe. Bucky would understand this suicide move. For the good of the universe.

The sheer will power Steve had to stop Thanos was enough to make the Titan stop for a moment. Steve was holding onto the gauntlet, the bright stones taunting him as he yelled out, pushing him off with all his might, using strength he didn’t knew he had. For a second Steve thought he could hold him there.

Then the other hand connected to his face and all went black. 

When he comes back, there’s silence. There’s no battle screams, the soil is warm under him, and Steve thinks this is it. He died and he's going to wake up, his Ma right there to welcome him to eternal rest. Steve could use some of that.

Yet, when he gets himself up, knees to the ground, he looks around and he’s still in Wakanda. He can see bodies around him, and he prays to a God he believes doesn’t in anymore that they’re all unconscious.

The fight isn’t over, but there’s a lull, and Steve thinks that maybe they’ve won. Somehow.

He get up and turns around, Thor’s voice grabbing his attention and he sees the hammer buried deep in Thano’s sternum, and he let's out a breath. His shoulders slack. They won. They really did win.

“What have you done?” Thor’s voice everythin but victorious, and in that moment Steve realizes that Thanos is grinning. He’s grinning and a moment later the hammer is falling to the ground.

“Thor? Thor, what happened?” He’s walking towards the other, his entire body screaming out at him to lay down, to rest, but he can’t give in. Not when there’s that look in Thor’s face, not when Steve feels his heart dropping to the pit of his stomach.

Thor looks at him, his eyes void of any expression, and Steve knows that they lost. What they lost, though, he doesn’t know.

Yet.

“Steve?”

He quickly turns at the sound of Bucky’s voice. Steve's ready to assure him that he’s okay, that no matter how bad or bloodied his face is, he’s there, he’s alive. He was so used to saying that, every time he got caught by the other getting into much more trouble than his tiny self should get, that the words were nearly spilling out if his lips. He was sore, bruised, but nowhere near as hurt as he used to get. 

Only Buck isn’t looking at him. He’s looking at dust. Ashes of what used to be his metal hand, arm, and before his legs give out and turn into ash as well, Bucky looks up at Steve and their eyes lock for a moment. 

This moment feels familiar, but it’s completely different. While there had been wild fear in those stormy eyes, now there’s resignation, defeat, and Steve didn’t know losing would feel like this.

Steve was reaching, but before he even raised his arm, Bucky was taking a step forward and falling into a pile of ash, the vibranium gun falling pathetically on the floor

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. 

It happened so fast that Steve wasn’t sure what he had just seen. Bucky had been right there and then he wasn’t. He walked to the lonely gun and leaned down, his fingers burying into the ashes, grabbing, reaching, holding onto Bucky. 

No.

No, no, no, no.

Steve looks up at Thor, that has the same defeated expression, his shoulders slumped, his eyes dropped to where Thanos had been a moment ago. He can hear Rhodey call out for Sam in the distance, but it’s almost like they're at the end of a tunel.

He simply gets up, ashes under his fingernails, looking around himself, hoping that’s a trick, that the reality stone is messing with their minds, like how easily Wanda had done the same. There was no way that Bucky just dissolved in front of him.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that the universe chose Bucky to go.

As everyone starts to regroup around himself and Thor, reality sets in, but Steve Rogers is still numb. Okoye has tears in her eyes as he tells them her King just vanished before her eyes. Rhodey is asking them if they saw Sam, and there’s a similar pile of ashes next to Vison’s lifeless body. There’s a talking racoon talking about the Tree, Groot?

Steve just kept looking at his hands. He couldn’t believe he couldn’t save Bucky. Again.

He couldn’t reach far enough in that train in the Alps, and this time, even if he had reached in time, he couldn’t hold him together. Steve Rogers failed Bucky Barnes once again and there was no way he could be back. Bitterly, he thought that Hydra couldn’t hurt him again.

Bucky had been happy. Happier, farming in the middle of rural Wakanda, getting to know himself after Hydra, after Zemo, and Steve felt guilty for taking that away from him. He felt guilty for pulling him to yet another fight, for not fighting hard enough to save half of the Universe, to save Bucky.

It was a strange feeling. No matter how hard it was, how impossible winning felt, losing always felt like an abstract thought for Steve. 

There were people fighting all through Europe, and even if he had to push that quinjet into the Arctic, sacrificing himself, Red Skull was dead and they won.

Steve was falling, the helicarriers were falling as well. He nearly got killed by his best friend, but he remembered. Hydra was destroyed. They won.

There was an entire city destroyed, dozens of people dead, but they saved thousands, and Ultron was defeated. They won.

Bucky was sobbing in pain from the loss of an arm that wasn’t supposed to hurt him, Steve’s reputation was destroyed, and maybe also with relationship with Tony Stark, but they won. Bucky was safe, they were going to get him help.

Bucky was dead now, so was T’Challa, Sam, Lord knows who else. Half of the universe was gone in a moment and they lost.

Numbness slowly turned into anger, fists curling, and Steve finally looked up, saw the group in front of him. Dirty, bleeding from all sorts of wounds. Defeated.

“We’ll get him. I’m telling you right now, we will get Thanos and we’ll stop him,” Steve’s voice was strong, firm, and the other might have found it inspiring, good old Captain America, Steve Rogers, but it was far from that.

Steve was going to turn the universe upside down to find Thanos, and he was going to end him. He burned a whole organization to the ground, twice, after they hurt Bucky. To hell if he wasn’t going to avenge Bucky one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could make it better, but nope, there's no way anyone could make it better, so I'm making it more angsty. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
